Nikon D810, 2.5 secs, f/16, 58mm, ISO 400

This image shows two locomotives, Canadian National Railroad No. 3254 and Canadian Pacific Railroad No. 2317 in the roundhouse at Steamtown National Historic Site.

This image was easy to process; convert to black and white, a little contrast tweak, and done. I did not even have to crop the image. One little touch I did not notice when capturing the image is the starburst of light half way up the right side. That little starburst helps pull the eye from No. 3254 over to No. 2317.

It should be a rule that all images of old locomotives be converted to black and white.

Steamtown National Historic Site: 41.407301° -75.671255°

Locomotive Butterfly Fire Door, Steamtown National Historic Site (click image to enlarge)

Nikon D810, 25 sec, f/16, 35mm, ISO 400

Notice that this image required a long exposure of 25 seconds. The butterfly door is located inside a locomotive cab that was not very well lit and surrounded by black surfaces. The museum was not crowded, so I was able to set up a tripod and capture this long exposure.

It also seems that all of the locomotive images I captured are much better in black and white instead of their normal color. This is because they were mostly black anyways, and what little color there was did not add significantly to the composition. As an instructor once said, if color does not add to the image, get rid of the color!

Steamtown National Historic Site: 41.407301° -75.671255°

Nathan Water Level Gauge, Steamtown National Historic Site (click image to enlarge)

Nikon D810, 1/25 sec, f/9.0, 38mm, ISO 200

This is another image that I composed with the idea of converting it to black and white during post processing (the first image is here).

The original of this image had a bright area on the upper left corner which was very distracting. Converting the image to black and white dampened that bright area and helped balance the background.

Also bright and shiny was the brass gauge itself. That bright spot dominated the image and prevented the eye from wandering to more interesting things. Keeping the red in the valves during the black and white conversion adds depth to the image.

Steamtown National Historic Site: 41.407301° -75.671255°

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